Building Montreal's Creative Class

A recently published article titled "Ahead of the Curve" by Richard Florida explores how urban centers like Montreal can realize the full potential of their creative abilities.

I'm not holding my breath. We're too busy looking cool to tie everything needed to make it work.

The article reminded me of a letter to the editor I once wrote (when I was itching to make a difference) which asserted that people are always ahead of the curve (how wide the curve is subject to debate) when measured against our political masters. It also recalled my concerns that Montreal's economic structure is fragile and propped up by the government.

There are many advantages Montreal possesses over its North American siblings. However, we have several disadvantages, which could prevent us from achieving anything Florida suggests. This is a big city run like a small town.

It doesn't take a genius to see that Montreal is gripped, more than most cities, by vision-less, inept and corrupt governance. If you own a building or business here, that much is self-evident. The city operates in a bizarre vacuum where leadership and sound urban thinking are absent. It's hard to innovate when you have to deal with so many layers of government and overbearing, stagnant unions.

Henry Aubin goes further here.

I’ve always wondered why we don't have more world class art galleries and even a theater district given our reputation for sophistication. Toronto - a city with its own growing cultural community - certainly uses its economic wealth to gain all these. Is Montreal economically strong enough to sustain and nurture its creative class?

So. How do we go from being creative to creative and influential? How do we make Montreal the Florence of North America, so to speak?

We should be cautious. The last thing we need is to blindly throw money to build a fabricated and fake creative class equivalent in value to those dreadful "Smart Centers."

A concern with trying to build a “creative class” is that we may overrate talent and entice some people who really shouldn't be artists, take a leap of faith into this world. It's a fine line between being a hipster doofus and an artist. This line of thinking is closer to this opinion and critique of Florida in Metropolismag.

Above all, for all the talk about how creative we are, why do I feel I have to leave Montreal to “make it?” My challenge is made more difficult since I left one career to join the creative field - especially for an English writer.

We should also ponder how much government involvement we want. Monarchs and popes used to act as patrons to the arts but so did private individuals. Surely the government has a role to play in this, but it should be limited and a balance should be found with the private sector.

This can help produce world class talent as artists would compete against one another to earn their grants, rather than wait in line for a government hand out. Subsidies don’t enhance culture or talent; it obscures the line between what is art and not. I would add that tension and endless contradictions are always good to feed the creative juices.

In my humble opinion, in the case of Montreal which has a strong creative base, we should visit some places where modern artistic flow stems. For instance, Italy is one of the last nations in the West to maintain an army of specialized artists, engineers and designers loyal to their handmade crafts.

The Italian case is special because there, we can observe how the economy and creative classes cooperate, operate and ultimately innovate. It's entirely possible that we'll find answers to what we may be looking for.

I hold the opinion that Quebec's artists would thrive under the "Italian system." It may be time to examine this.